a vote of last co-prosperity had italians are choosing their parliament with a former comedian stealing support from mainstream politicians and disappointing disappointment running high. america's new secretary of state john kerry is checking the boxes with key allies in europe on his first tour abroad look at what is mission with all nato allies could be. the. syrian rebels release a video which they say shows a government helicopter being shot down with a missile that's as the regime says it's ready to talk to all sides of the opposition even those who are armed and fighting. and afghan drugs the middle russian vegetables drug control officer sees almost two hundred kilos of heroin hidden in sacks with ragin radishes at

a market near moscow. good evening i'm lucy catherine of things for tuning in this evening you're watching our t.v. well voting has ended in italy where dissolutions public has been choosing its parliament exit polls show the center left coalition is leading with the main surprise of the selection the party led by a former comedian is also showing good results well for more on the outcome let's cross live to our team. who is in rome probably slightly better weather than here in moscow arena how are the exit polls stacking up so far. well it's actually starting to snow here but that is going to really important though we are looking at this point it looks like sandy is indeed. heading

these results he is coming in the first place. the good old silvio berlusconi's in the second place and then there is of course the kicker that's in the third place we have the five star party with the face of the stand up comedian of the best agree low heading to that party and of course not and one thing is troubling in the fourth place of course that is that these are just the preliminary results but you also have to understand that in some areas and i was just watching the television here on the square in some areas that agree low this kind of comedians actually in the first place and this is something that nobody has even dared to predict just days ago this is an interesting election looks like yes and it looks like the center left is coming out on top. it it does of course of course there are still some people who are voting for. going to so with the safe role of voting for the candidate that they're thinking will possibly take this

country somewhere to a better place to understand that italy is in a crisis right now obviously economic social there are so still some people who are missing the good old days and they're the ones who are giving you the votes and they tend to be the kind of the older generation. so the young people however are all voting for about program low when we talk to them that's what they said that's the person that's the man of their choice actually all right and i'm curious of course italy is in a very shaky situation economically talk a little bit about some of the economic impacts of the outcome of this election. will italy is euro zone's number three nation obviously whatever happens here will impact their markets and the euro zone a great place so everybody all there in the bankers and of course the ministers the finance ministers of the eurozone are watching the election closely and nervously because of something like something something unforeseen like whether he will actually coming to the head happens and of course they all be you know wondering

what's going to happen to them that will impact the markets but quincey downplay once the news of the scorn you trailing them all went down in the second place that once that was known the markets what do you know so it is no there is another reason to watch the election as attentively as you can to kind of predict the financial future off the euro zone and i mean i know you're watching this closely for us but what happens if there is no majority in this case. and actually a good question because a lot of the analysts of course the that we have spoken to there is saying that there will be no absolute majority and people will have to form a coalition they are predicting that. he will have to side with. monty an interesting situation because both of these candidates have been showering each other with kind of mild sort of aristocratic insults throughout the campaign but they're probably will have to come to terms with the fact that they will have to be

friends at least for the show and tonight they're in the parliament but also it would be interesting to see if that happens whether or not it will. try and side with better agree to roll a stand up comedian on one side berlusconi himself used to be a stage singer so no stranger to performance and the wild antics maybe that is another possibility we could be facing in these elections of course results are coming tomorrow so we have to wait for them and see what happens next well i know you'll be keeping us up to date. live from rome thank you so much for that update all right well for more on the alice's on italy's preliminary election results we're joined by paolo ruffo now strategic and political analyst. all right sir let's see where we are there where there's the camera thanks so much for taking the time to speak with us now the exit polls that we're looking at right now are suggesting that bersani and his center left party is leading as a rino just informed us he promised to broadly stick to reforms that have been

started by mr monti do you feel that entirely and genuinely want to continue life under these austerity measures. certainly not of certain measures have been largely rejected the results that we had of the vote to this moment we have got the standard these are still unstable the results so things may change over the next few hours but we see that even one of the two chambers in fact the center math could be should has won the elections but on the other chamber the senate of the republic has not won the election paradoxically the first party seems to be the one who has the berlusconi followed by the center left and then the. group of mr grillo so we have to see that these are the results in times of occasional posts in the senate if we see in terms of number of votes you see the first party in the

senate would be the movement which is the comedian as we were describing it. was created two years ago this movement is bringing in new forces into the believe it will arena need to be people who have never been involved in politics before so this is a b. change and it's for sure rejection of your state of thinking and how do you explain this our former comedian success i'm curious osip simply because he's bringing in normal people people who are anybody who wants to be engaged on suited purpose to see the country in order to make it before we did reform of the country our standard year before we're going to be together there are a means of very different for that's why the government has seen them into those thirteen but in the reform side has done almost nothing and turning back to mr berlusconi of course he was forced out of office not not

a very pretty picture in terms of italy's economy during his tenure what do you think is behind the support staff for mr berlusconi. well mr tiddles going to has been in this campaign and the past two months clearly attacking the moment a government for the austerity plans and the increase in taxes so he has intercepted a good number of votes we have to remember the two months ago his party of was as the media did about fifteen percent today he's about thirty percent so in two months he has almost doubled or more than doubled actually his polls and this is because people who need to be diluted of a stake in measures which have not produced the structural reforms of the society you know that do have a trustable future call for those who are already working and for those who have planned to do the work force people

a diet of promises which have not been fulfilled the center left it is. getting what it was already seen in the polls lections but certainly many people are wondering why they didn't make the reforms in the previous the stations where they had the majority so the situation is very cultic at the moment it is not certain that the government can be forced if not the coalition government involved in almost all the major political forces that are present in the bombs and of course a lot at stake out we are talking about they are his own third largest economy thank you so much for that analysis poller a phony strategic and political analyst. you're welcome. all the new u.s. secretary of state has reaffirmed a partnership of the heart between the u.k. and america in his visit to london john kerry has been testing ground for american foreign policy on the first leg of his very first tour abroad now kerry has chosen

to meet with traditional allies in europe such as the leaders of germany and france before heading on to the middle east political expert john reason is that kerry's mission in europe is all about perfect way thirty partners to take on a greater role in nato or in water to make it it's always been very important for the americans to keep the nato alliance together but they always want to keep it together on their own terms it's always been the case for instance that the senior commanding officer in nato is from the american forces and what the americans constantly want to do is to shift the burden of military intervention on to the european powers put the key political control over the process and i think that the we've seen that a number of times recently especially since the american focus is now beginning to shift towards the pacific to deal with the rising threat of china we are going to the europeans now have to take on

a greater share of burden in respect of policing the arab world and north africa what we're seeing here is an attempt to convince the nato allies that they should pay more but have no more influence well a massive drug bust on the edge of moscow has once again highlighted the alarming rise of the illegal heroin trade from of ghana stand here into russia almost two hundred kilos of high grade heroin was seized by drug control officers this monday at a busy market well earlier artie's shown thomas described the details. great story here the russian federal drug control services say that they have discovered one hundred ninety kilos worth one hundred eighty million u.s. dollars outside of moscow and how they discovered it is kind of interesting in fact the drugs made it all the way from afghanistan here in bags of radishes in fact you can see the radishes and then the green heroine check this out it's a dyed in the color of the ratchet is radishes so that it's less noticeable less

easy to detect and there they've discovered one hundred and ninety kilos worth now the big news here is that they have blocked where they believe they've blocked a major supply route from afghanistan through and it was back to stan company a vegetable contract that was sending things to the urals russian company there and then brought to moscow in this particular case they have detained two people two more people have been arrested of course the investigation is ongoing if you look at this week around russia in different regions around thirty tons of various types of drugs between heroin marijuana synthetics drugs and psychotropics as well they were discovered in various regions around russia but the bad news is since the west has gone into afghanistan since the u.s. invasion drug production from afghanistan up five thousand percent not good news at all and then again narcotics into russia from afghanistan has more than doubled in that amount of time and in fact of the director of the russian federal drug control services states that two thousand and fourteen may actually be

a very good year for russia saying that when the u.s. bugs out of afghanistan they actually expect that the import of drugs from afghanistan to russia will actually decrease. well it looks like drugs are just one of the many problems facing afghanistan these days the country has seen further turmoil president tom made karzai ordered u.s. special forces out of the board on all things trying to quell public anger over numerous cases of civilian murders and abuses and we're going to report on that a little bit later this hour. we'll syrian rebels have released a new video which they claim is evidence of a growing success in their fight against government forces. are just amateur footage apparently shows a rebel fighter shooting down a syrian army helicopter with a missile. well you hear the sound right

there well the attack allegedly took place near the city of aleppo the scene of heavy fighting last week rebel officials said that they've received a new batch of heavy weaponry from outside sponsors off the jordanian border meanwhile syria's government says that it is ready to hold talks with the opposition including its armed factions the country's foreign minister made the announcement while meeting russian diplomats here in moscow but attempts to bring peace to syria have suffered a fresh blow this after the main rebel coalition decided to pull out of all international talks their reason a lack of international action against president assad will artie's ego peace going to has the details for us. this visit is taking place at a very uncertain time it's really not clear what's needed to be done in order to get the syrian opposition engage in talks with the government and saddam askers does stress that it is really for dialogue where the opposition and if the last week there were some positive signals coming from the wells they said that they

were willing to hold talks with the government now they refused coming to moscow accusing russia of supporting president assad it was so the number of those who support this realistic approach towards a peaceful resolution is growing those who want to continue fighting to the end realize that so they're trying to suppress positive news from the opposition and stop any steps towards dialogue. in the meantime soon after all these have put together a government commission headed by the prime minister designed specifically for negotiations with the opposition and they say that they are ready to talk even with armed rebels. for dialogue with everyone including those who are fighting on the ground as we are convinced that reforms should not be made through bloodshed meanwhile it was more or less predictable that the rebels would refuse coming to moscow it came as a total surprise that they rejected coming to washington and to rome to take part

in the upcoming meeting of the so-called friends of syria group which was initially designed to support to the syrian opposition and foreign minister lavrov a stress if nothing is done now and no political process starts if the violence continues there then the whole country is on the brink of collapse or news after a short break stay with us you're watching our team. well. it's technology innovation all the leads developments from around russia we've got this huge earth covered. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for life you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm target market was

a big. leap . for news today violence is once again flared up. and these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. trying to corporations rule the day. good evening i'm lucy coughing up again watching our team well the rivalry between the u.s. and china has gone digital and as threatening to turn into a full scale cyber war a recent scandal involving

a chinese military you unit allegedly engaged in cyber theft for american companies us but washington on the defensive but it may not be long before washington makes its move in this new era of cyber arms race. reports. in january it is my pleasure to welcome president hu to the white house washington and beijing were the a list couple of geopolitics the positive constructive cooperative u.s. china relationship is good for the united states in february america's feelings are fleeting china unleashing its full spy power let's return to the alleged link between china's military and a prolific hacking group most cyber attacks are being carried out by teams inside the chinese military china is officially out of control because don't look now but prove today our sugar daddy is a thief beijing became an overnight security threat last week after the american

information security firm mandiant identified a secretive chinese military unit as the likely source of hacking against the u.s. corporations i charged china vehemently denies. however as the us refocuses its military from the middle east to china's backyard critics say it's no coincidence that beijing is suddenly morphing into america's virtual al-qaeda i think this is part of what oh egypt of it which is really a china and this cyber thing is is fits right into that i think what we're looking at is art of this obama pivot to focus on china and to paint china is the new military threat to the world it's a demonization trying to earlier this month u.s. president barack obama signed an executive order aimed at strengthening america's defenses when you know hackers steal people's identities and infiltrate private e-mails we know foreign countries and companies swipe our corporate secrets.

now our enemies are also seeking the ability to sabotage our power grid our financial institutions our traffic control systems we cannot look back years from now and wonder why we did nothing in the face of real threats to our security and our comp but according to reports washington is all too familiar with the offensive side of cyber war it's the u.s. who launches things like stuxnet together with israel to to cripple certain iranian technology capabilities in two thousand and ten a computer virus known as stuxnet infected tehran's enrichment facilities destroying nearly one thousand of iran's six thousand centrifuges according to reports the virus made entirely out of code was a joint collaboration between the us and israel in terms of a pandora's box i think it will be slightly harder for the united states to adopt a position of purely be friends we sort of made it clear that we're willing to use

cyber in advance of our national interest while reports about china's a legit cyber attacks have dominated u.s. mainstream media much less is being said about the pentagon's decision to double down on its cyber war workforce expanding from nine hundred to more than forty five hundred employees experts say the move is indicative of washington's evolving military strategy every commander with whom i have spoken is going to be is the next major war will include is cyber component which is the traditional insurgency bob baer the central ground troops the next floor all certainly will include cyber component and the edge of cyber war france could become foes by the click of a mouse and some say in a very short time relations between the u.s.

and china over virtual espionage can resemble the long stalemate that took place at the soviet union during the cold war we're in a port i.r.t. new york. or it will cyber war or cyber hype a former pentagon official michael maloof is with me here to discuss certain do these attacks genuinely present a real and imminent danger as the media and government officials frankly portray. yes i do this is. part of an eight and a form of asymmetrical warfare it precludes the use of violence it's a form of sixth generation type of warfare that's coming into being right now in which you have you can do standoff type of activities to disrupt using the cyber approach and in the case of the united states it's aimed at our grid system our

as the president pointed out and and at our critical infrastructure which is very vulnerable already and this is been no one including our. nuclear reactors there have been recent tests on this and they've been quite successful in disrupting the ability of these nuclear reactors to respond so the threat of a cyber attack from unknown entities is very very serious and and i think that's why the pentagon has responded so forcefully in increasing its capability to counter such an activity and it's i said it earlier it's part of an asymmetrical approach that the chinese themselves have undertaken and it's part of their new doctor and if you will particularly since it's being orchestrated by the people's liberation army this is part of their strategy and it's not aimed just at us but it almost every other industrialized country that has technology and

information to share so that it becomes a substitute really for putting spies into locations which is lengthy and and costly and and has questionable results but this allows them access and not only to not only to spy but to also disrupt. facilities is if those facilities are vulnerable there are six of them that they shouldn't be there i mean i would hope that a political or a commercial motivation or is that a common some combination of both what's behind. it's all the above and it's political economic and it's military this is a means of capturing technology on the one hand that they don't have to that they may not have access to it's a means of listening or obtaining information by competitors of high tech companies unbeknownst to the these companies we've had other recent cases

and recent senate investigations and house intelligence investigations of how the chinese use microchips installed in telecommunications equipment to actually spy on competitors and and big big major businesses who have a lot of technology that they want as i say this is a form of economic warfare it's it's also has military and diplomatic implications and clearly the chinese see this as a robust effort if they have you know if they're devoting entire facilities to do this kind of spying they're also devoting entire facilities hiring ten to fifteen thousand people to actually make fraudulent in counterfeit microchips because they know that our that we're going to be buying off the shelf type of. high technology and and they they they actually have dedicated thousands of people just for that

purpose and they can be programmed these microchips can be programmed well certainly a very real threat but we do know that the american officials have had in fact also increased number of employees working on cyber security issues five fold as we heard in a package there so certainly escalating tensions on both sides thank you so much former pentagon official michael maloof thanks for that update and where a look take a look at some of the other stories making headlines around the world right now. at least ten people have reportedly been injured in clashes between israeli soldiers and palestinian demonstrators it's claimed that shots were fired during protests against the death of a palestinian man who perished in israeli custody under disputed circumstances there are allegations that thirty year old arafat's jar adot was killed by torture inside. but israel denies any more tests are needed to establish the cause of death

. the world's favorite flat pack furniture store has been caught up in the european horsemeat. crisis ikea's famous meatballs known for sustaining millions of shoppers worldwide were revealed to be in fact partly horse meat balls they've been pulled from cafes in a number of countries including sweden the czech republic after tests revealed they contained horse d.n.a. if asked months of the scandal has battered trusted me use food system exposing failures across the continent. the afghan president hamid karzai has ordered u.s. special forces to leave the key battleground province of wardog troops there were accused of torture and the murder of civilians actually there are afghan troops under u.s. special forces oversight and just as kabul is preparing to regain control of security politics professor patricia doesn't r.-o. believe that cars i also needs to regain the support of the people. the wardak province is.